O western entre as histórias em quadrinhos e as novelas gráficas: a transposição cultural da temática da conquista do oeste nas histórias em quadrinhos do personagem Tex Willer

Abstract

This paper investigates if the editions of Speciale Tex (Ediçãogigante, in Brazil), of the comic books’ character Tex Willer, published by the book publisher Sergio Bonelli, can be understood as Graphic Novels. It will be also investigated which are the socio-cultural processes involved in the cultural transposition of the thematic genre western, its constitution and influence in different regional contexts, specially the Italian, American and Brazilian contexts, using as a case study of Tex. To do that, we have analyzed the development context of the American west conquest in the XIX century and its continuous revitalization in mass media such as cinema and the comic books during the XX and XXI centuries. At the same time, we intend to understand which are the characteristics (structural, editorial and historical) that define a Graphic novel and differ it from a regular comic book. After we collected the main elements of the Graphic novels, we compared some extracts of scenes of one edition of Speciale Tex with one of the regular series of Tex. The investigations pointed that there are no structural and thematic differences between the scenes that were analyzed. Furthermore, the creation of Speciale Tex happens at the same time that the Graphic Novels started to be produced and at the same time of the legitimation of the western as a relevant genre to understand the contexts that were hybridized by the cultural approximation caused by the globalization, like the case of The United States, Italy and Brazil.